Case Number 08294

A GREAT DAY IN HARLEM

The Charge

"The picture became a movie. It was a still but it was really a living
thing."

Opening Statement

In August 1958, Art Kane took a photograph for Esquire of 57 (mostly
major) jazz musicians standing near a Harlem brownstone. The story of the
photograph contains a few oddities and minor miracles, not the least of which is
the mystery of how Kane managed to shepherd such a large number of notoriously
unpunctual and night-owlish artists to one place at 10 o'clock in the morning.
The picture was also Kane's first assignment in what would become a long career
as a photographer; at the time, he was an art designer. His boss for the job
also happened to be Robert Benton, who, of course, would go on to a major career
as Hollywood screenwriter (Bonnie and Clyde) and director (Kramer vs.
Kramer).

The picture was taken at an unusually fruitful time in jazz history, when
New Orleans and swing legends moved both socially and musically with the most
arcane of modernists (part of the genius of the photograph is that it embraces a
vision of jazz which includes both Chubby Jackson and Charles Mingus, Red Allen
and Art Farmer). It's a terrific picture (I have a poster of it on my living
room wall), creating a sense of spontaneity and informality, capturing the
personalities of many of the outsized figures involved: Thelonious Monk stands
mysteriously at attention; Charles Mingus lets a menacing cigarette droop from
his lip; Dizzy Gillespie sticks out his tongue, and Count Basie lounges and
smiles with the neighborhood kids.

Facts of the Case

Jean Bach's 1994 documentary, which runs about an hour, tries to be a lot of
things at once. She tells the story of the picture-taking process itself from
idea to execution, featuring interviews with Kane, Benton, and Kane's assistant
Steve Frankfurt (although the question of how and why all these guys showed up
isn't really dealt with; I guess they liked the idea of being in
Esquire). The film also features interviews with a number of the artists
themselves, the most prominent of which are Gillespie, Sonny Rollins, and Art
Blakey. They talk about the picture itself and share stories about their
colleagues. Visuals consist mostly of archival photos and motion picture footage
of the artists, and various stills from the day of the shoot, to which bassist
Milt Hinton and jazz buff Mike Lipkin brought cameras (Hinton is a noted
photographer himself. He also brought an 8mm movie camera to the shoot, and we
see a little of his footage, too). A Great Day in Harlem is frustrating
in that it skims genially along the surface of a number of issues without ever
engaging any of them; the film itself is almost an afterthought in Image's new
two-DVD release, which features about four hours of extras, most of which share
the virtues and flaws of the original feature.

The Evidence

Jean Bach herself is very prominent in the extras, telling stories about the
making of the film and sharing insights about the artists; she comes across as a
rather proper but hip and slightly goofy older lady. She often appears as a
minor character in her own stories, hobnobbing with jazz artists, and it's
frustrating that we never get a concrete sense of who she is. One can piece
together a biography of sorts from the stories she tells; she's a radio
producer, journalist, and jazz buff, one of a group of affluent, progressive
whites who served as impresarios for the music, beginning in the 1950s (the
Newport Jazz Festival, for example, was largely the result of their initiative).
She's not a filmmaker and much of the credit for cobbling her interviews into a
movie must go to producer Matthew Seig and editor Susan Peehl.

It's not surprising, then, that A Great Day in Harlem is a
dilettante's film, flitting from subject to subject, never quite sure where it
wants to land. One of the nice things about the film is its willingness to
linger on artists such as Vic Dickinson and Stuff Smith, musicians beloved by
buffs but largely forgotten otherwise. It's also nice to see interviews with
aging giants such as Blakey, Gillespie, and Hinton, who have all died since the
film was made; any surviving material from them is precious. So there are plenty
of pleasures to be had here, but the effect is mostly to make one want more:
five minutes of Thelonious Monk stories, for example, is just an appetizer for
one of the several fine documentaries that have been made about the man. The
performance footage used as background, much of which comes from the 1957 CBS
special The Sound of Jazz, is also great but is doled out in little
snippets which make one want to turn off the DVD player and listen to some old
albums. Since time is so short, we also don't get much musical analysis and, in
the end, the enterprise seems loving, fun, and valuable but distinctly
underwhelming.

The extras, unfortunately, while copious, are more of the same.

"Stories From the Making of A Great Day in Harlem": In this
43-minute featurette, Bach, Seig, and Peehl reflect on the origins and
conception of the film, and Bach shares some behind-the-scenes stories from her
interviews with artists, including making gentle fun of their eccentricities and
tendencies toward rambling (especially Art Blakey and saxophonist Bed Freeman).
We also see footage from the interviews which was not used in the film.

"Art Kane": This 10-minute segment is mostly a Bach monologue, as
she shares her recollections of Kane, who suffered from bipolar disorder and
committed suicide at some point since A Great Day in Harlem was made (I
couldn't find an exact date; the official site devoted to his art does not
mention his death). Also included is interview footage with Kane that does not
appear in the original film, in which he talks about his artistic philosophy and
the origins of his desire to be an artist.

"The Next Generation: Bill Charlap and Kenny Washington": An
interview between Bach, pianist Charlap, and drummer Washington, younger
musicians who grew up in a jazz milieu and had the opportunity to know several
of the artists in the photo, spends most of its 25 minutes with the two men
waxing effusive about their elders and is not especially interesting; they're so
eager to be respectful that the whole thing is rather substanceless, although
Washington tells a nicely strange story about his encounters with an aging Jo
Jones.

"The Copycat Photos": Bach shows us a number of photos which have
been taken since the release of A Great Day in Harlem, most of which are
variations on the concept of the original. Photos have been taken of jazz
musicians in various cities both in the States and abroad, and of blues,
doo-wop, classical, and hip-hop musicians.

"Explore the Photo": All of the extras listed above are on the
first disc; the second disc consists entirely of this feature, which contains
brief profiles of all 57 musicians in the photo, plus profiles of pianist Willie
"The Lion" Smith, who was present but wandered out of frame as the
picture was being taken, and Taft Jordan Jr., the son of the trumpeter: of the
children present in the photo, he was the only one to be identified. One can
access the profiles either by navigating through the photo and highlighting your
chosen artist, or through an alphabetical list.

Most of these profiles run about three minutes, although some are as short
as one minute and Dizzy Gillespie's runs to seven. At their worst, they consist
of Bach giving biographical information and reading stories about the subjects
from books (why not just include a bibliography?). At their best, they contain
interview footage which wasn't used for the original film; for the most
well-known figures, such as Gillespie, Bach dispenses with the biography and
focuses on one or two anecdotes (Milt Hinton talks about the spitball-throwing
incident which got Dizzy kicked out of Cab Calloway's band). In the end, these
profiles become a little wearying in their relentless bland affability. This
seems like an almost inevitable difficulty in a project such as this, in which
an admirable respect and kindness prevent an interviewer from delving too deeply
into the lives and opinions of her subjects. Still, for this viewer, hearing 59
separate times that such-and-such was an excellent person and a fine musician,
with no deeper aesthetic, psychological, or political exploration, got awfully
tiresome.

Closing Statement

As a jazz fan, I'm glad that this film exists and that people enjoy it; jazz
seems to be more respected than actually listened to, and if A Great Day in
Harlem inspires anyone to pick up an Art Blakey album, I suppose it's done
its job. It's probably best for jazz novices, who will come away from it with
new knowledge of 57 separate artists in widely varying styles (58 if you count
Willie the Lion). In the end, A Great Day in Harlem does open up the
world of jazz, even if it doesn't penetrate too deeply into it.